Fun_People Archive
8 Nov
The Dark Rituals of Unix 

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 95 00:38:40 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: The Dark Rituals of Unix

Forwarded-by: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: jim@SmallWorks.COM (Jim Thompson)
Forwarded-by: sjs@sunthing.sjsinc.com (Stefan Jon Silverman)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Subject:
         The Dark Rituals of Unix
     Date:
         Wed, 13 Sep 1995 12:46:41 GMT
     From:
         ogre@netcom.com (Mr. Ogre)
Organization:
         ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/og/ogre/home.html
 Newsgroups:
         alt.religion.kibology, alt.folklore.computers, alt.irc,  
alt.religion.emacs

  Recently I've been spending some of my valuable free time hanging out
on IRC, mostly on #unix, the channel where crusty old fart^H^H^H^HUnix
gurus /kick people for asking questions.  Note I didn't say "stupid
questions" or "questions unrelated to Unix" I just said questions.

  Anyway, I, as a good samaritan, occasionally try to answer a question.
Now what really bugs me is that people never take me seriously.  Animal
sacrifice is no joking matter, if I tell you you need to sacrifice a goat
with a vorpal blade on an altar of granite in order to untar your file,
I mean it.  The man page for tar even says so.  The reason most people
don't realize this is that the man page is purposefully confusing in order
to keep the unskilled practictioners from hurting themselves.

  Furthermore, the number of cats present in your household is an
important factor in determining the exact ritual for virtually every Unix
command.  When I ask you to supply this information, I am not being
frivolous or misleading.  To answer your question about what program you
use to rename a file, I desperately need to know the strength of the
feline aura in your vicinity.

  In the future, please realize that I know more than you, and that all
my questions are relative to your problem, whether or not it seems that
way to you.

        Joe
        AKA MrOgre, often found on #unix in the dark hours when the
                    mana runs hot through the circuits of Unix boxen.
[=] © 1995 Peter Langston []